very obvious things) is not capable, without a constant defining [of] the terms, [to] convey the sense and intention of the speaker without any manner of doubt and uncertainty to the hearer. And in discourses of Religion, Law, and Morality, as they are matters of the highest concernment, so there will be the greatest difficulty.

The volumes of interpreters and commentators on the Old and New Testaments are manifest proofs of this. Though everything said in the text be infallibly true, yet the reader may be very fallible in the understanding of it. Nor is it to be wondered that the will of God, when clothed in words, should be liable to that doubt and uncertainty which unavoidably attend that sort of conveyance; when even His Son, whilst clothed in flesh, was subject to all the inconveniences of human nature, sin excepted. And we ought to magnify His goodness, that He has spread before all the world such legible characters of His works and providence, and given all mankind so sufficient a light of reason, that they to whom this written word never came could not (whenever they set themselves to search) either doubt of the being of a God, or of the obedience due to Him. Since, then, the precepts of Natural Religion are plain, and very intelligible to all mankind, and seldom come to be controverted, and [since] other Revealed Truths, which are conveyed to us by books and languages, are liable to the common and natural obscurities and difficulties incident to words, it would become us to be more careful and diligent in observing the former, and less magisterial, positive, and imperious in imposing our own sense and interpretations of the latter.

CHAPTER X.

OF THE ABUSE OF WORDS.

Abuse of words.-Besides the Imperfection that is naturally in Language, and the obscurity and confusion that is so hard to be avoided in the use of Words, there are several wilful faults and neglects which men are guilty of in this way of communication, whereby they render these signs less clear and distinct in their signification than naturally they need to be.

Words without any, or without clear, ideas.—First, In this kind the first and most palpable Abuse is the using of words without clear and distinct ideas; or, which is worse, [the using of] signs without anything signified. Of these there are two sorts:—

1. One may observe in all languages certain Words that, if they be examined, will be found, in their first original and their appropriated use, not to stand for any clear and distinct ideas. These, for the most part, the several sects of philosophy and religion have introduced.

2. Others extend this abuse yet farther, who take so little care to lay by Words which, in their primary notation, have scarcely any clear and distinct ideas which they are annexed to, that, by an unpardonable negligence, they familiarly use words which the propriety of Language has affixed to very important ideas, without any distinct meaning at all. Wisdom,' 'glory,' 'grace,' &c., are words frequent enough in every man's mouth; but if a great many of those who use them should be asked what

they mean by them, they would not know what to

answer.

Occasioned by learning names before the ideas they belong to.-Men, having been accustomed from their cradles to learn Words which are easily got and retained, before they knew or had framed the complex ideas to which they were annexed, or which were to be found in the things they were thought to stand for, usually continue to do so all their lives: [they] take the Words they find in use amongst their neighbours; and, that they may not seem ignorant [of] what they stand for, use them confidently, without much troubling their heads about a certain fixed meaning; whereby as in such discourses they seldom are in the right, so they are as seldom to be convinced that they are in the wrong; it being all one to go about to draw those men out of their mistakes who have no settled notions, as to dispossess a vagrant of his habitation who has no settled abode.

Unsteady application of them.—Secondly, Another great Abuse of Words is,—inconstancy in the use of them. It is hard to find a discourse written on any subject, especially of controversy, wherein one shall not observe, if he read with attention, the same Words (and those commonly the most material in the discourse, and upon which the argument turns) used sometimes for one collection of simple ideas, and sometimes for another: which is a perfect abuse of Language; [for] a man, in his accounts with another, may, with as much fairness, make the characters of numbers. stand sometimes for one and sometimes for another collection of units (v. g. [make]

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this character-3-stand sometimes for 'three,' sometimes for 'four,' and sometimes for eight'), as, in his discourse or reasoning, make the same Words stand for different collections of simple ideas.

Affected obscurity by wrong application.-Thirdly, Another Abuse of Language is-affected obscurity: by either [1.]applying old words to new and unusual significations; or [2.]introducing new and ambiguous terms without defining either; or else [3.] putting them so together as may confound their ordinary meaning. Though the Peripatetic philosophy has been most eminent in this way, yet other sects have not been wholly clear of it. There is scarcely any of them that [is] not cumbered with some difficulties (such is the imperfection of human Knowledge), which they have been fain to cover with obscurity of terms; and to confound the signification of words, which, like a mist before people's eyes, might hinder their weak parts from being discovered.

This is unavoidably so where men's parts and learning are estimated by their skill in disputing. And if reputation and reward shall attend these conquests which depend mostly on the fineness and niceties of Words, it is no wonder if the wit of men so employed should perplex, involve, and subtilize the signification of sounds, so as never to want something to say in opposing or defending any question.

Besides, there is no such way to gain admittance [for] or give defence to strange and absurd doctrines, as to guard them round about with legions of obscure, doubtful, and undefined Words; which yet make these retreats more like the dens of robbers, or [the] holes of

foxes, than the fortresses of fair warriors: which if it be hard to get them out of, it is not for the strength that is in them, but [for] the briers and thorns and obscurity of the thickets they are beset with. For, untruth being unaccceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for absurdity but-obscurity.

Taking them for things.-Fourthly, Another great Abuse of Words is the taking them for things. This, though it, in some degree, concerns all Names in general, yet more particularly affects those of Substances. To this Abuse those men are most subject who confine their thoughts to any one system, and give themselves up into a firm belief of the perfection of any received hypothesis: whereby they come to be persuaded, that the terms. of that sect are so suited to the nature of things that they perfectly correspond with their real existence. Who is there that has been bred up in the Peripatetic philosophy, who does not think the ten Names under which are ranked the "Ten Predicaments" to be exactly conformable to the nature of things? Who is there of that School that is not persuaded that substantial forms,' 'vegetative souls,' abhorrence of a vacuum,' ‘intentional species,' &c. are something real. These Words men have learned from their very entrance upon Knowledge, and have found their masters and systems lay great stress upon them: and therefore they cannot quit the opinion that they are conformable to nature, and are the representations of something that really exists. The Platonists have their soul of the world,' and the Epicureans their endeavour towards motion' in their atoms when at rest.' There is scarcely any sect in philosophy